And none of us could do anything about it, either then or now.
It is strange that while the bombing was going on, I did not at all feel that it was serious. At first I thought it was an exercise (there had been one three hours earlier). And when the thundering sounds began, I thought it was the ack-ack. There were a couple of more powerful convulsions, but they did not seem to come from bombs.
When I went into the yard, I saw many sheets of colored paper floating about (propaganda material, probably), and I thought that that was all the aircraft had dropped. The first rumors from town (a bomb on Brezoianu, another on Strada Carol) sounded like concoctions.
When I went toward the center, a strange nervous agitation animated the streets — more like curiosity than terror. Only later did we realize the scale of the destruction.
Leni’s house is completely wrecked. I went there the day before yesterday to help her rummage for anything that could be saved from the rubble.1
Mary, the young manicurist who used to come every Friday morning, was killed. She was so young, so sweet, so honest — a shopgirl, but as graceful as a child, as sensible as a young lady at a boarding school.
When, among the thousands of anonymous dead, you come across a face you know, a smile you have seen before, death becomes terribly concrete.
Aristide, Rosetti, Camil, and Vi§oianu have fled the city, each to where he was able. No one is left except us, for whom any thought of leaving is ruled out.
The consternation caused by Tuesday’s bombing will gradually pass, but anxiety about a future one will remain. When will it come? What will it be like? In which district? Will we escape? Who will escape?
Nor is it just a question of physical survival. There is also the misery that follows, and all the dangers involved in a general atmosphere of despair, fury, and hatred.
For the moment there are no signs of an anti-Semitic crisis. But one is possible at any time.
Sunday, 16 April
The second bombing came yesterday morning, between twelve and one. It struck me as much worse than the previous one. Fortunately I was at home and could calm Mama a little; she had a fit of weeping. At least once, the noise of the explosion was so loud that I felt everything was happening in our neighborhood. The aircraft always seemed to be passing over our heads. We waited tensely: now. . now. . now
The city center looks appalling. Bulevardul Elisabeta from Brezoianu to Rosetti, and Calea Victoriei from the post office to Regală, are blocked. Most of the bombs fell here and in nearby streets. What were they aiming at? I don’t know. Maybe the telephone exchange. But in that case the bombing was very inaccurate. The block containing Cartea românească was destroyed; the University and the School of Architecture set on fire; many other buildings hit. Yesterday evening the flames could be seen from a long way off. I don’t know if there were casualties and, if so, how many.
I keep thinking of Poldy. When we hear from him, everything will be easier to bear. But until then, all kinds of thoughts will beset me.
Spring! Full of anxieties, full of uncertainties. Somewhere, far away, muted hopes.
I am too alone. Old, sad, and alone.
But I forbid myself to sink into a crisis of personal despair. I have no right. Il faut tenir le coup.2
I am reading Balzac, the only thing of which I feel capable at present. I couldn’t work. I have reread with disgust one of my plays (“Alexander the Great”). I didn’t realize it was quite that bad. Inexorable.
I have reread with great interest Illusions perdues (Les deux poètes, Un grand homme de province à Paris, Les Souffrances de Vinventeur). Yesterday and today, Ferragus. I have now begun La Duchesse de Langeais.
Tuesday, 18 April
This morning’s air-raid warning caught me at the liceu. As soon as the “pre-alarm” sounded, I went into the street and started running home. The main square had a cinematic aspect: a scene of crowd panic, with hundreds of people running aimlessly like drunken ants.
I stopped for a moment at the corner of Strada 11 Junie, just as the siren was sounding. I went into a trench but soon came out again. What was the point? I kept heading for home, to be with Mama as quickly as possible. The streets had emptied, but there were still a few people passing by. No one forced us to move on. The terrible silence of a deserted city.
On Sunday morning they were over Brasov and Turnu Severin. And today?
No news from Poldy. I wait anxiously.
Still reading Balzac. Yesterday I finished La Duchesse de Langeais. (It’s not the masterpiece that Antoine Bibescu suggested.) I know immeasurably better things in Balzac, even among the minor works. La vieille fille, for instance — not to speak of Pierrette.)
I read today La fille aux yeux d’or.
Yesterday I happened to open a volume of Baudelaire. I was struck by the affinity between his Paris and a certain image of Paris in Balzac: a dirty, fetid, gloomy city, a (scarcely theatrical) mixture of splendor and misery, a Paris I used to consider distinctively Baudelairean and that I am now getting to know better and better in Balzac.
As soon as I hear good news from Poldy, I’ll try to work. A play (“Freedom”) or even the novel.
Saturday, 22 April
Yesterday morning, at the fateful hour of twelve, there was another air raid — the third. I still don’t know which part of town was hit. There’s nothing in the center. It must have been in the outskirts — Pipera, Ford, Malaxa. Anyway, this time we don’t hear any echoes of a great disaster.
This morning at eleven a rumor started, from somewhere, that there was an alert. The shops closed and people rushed home.
In the evening there has been the growing impression of a deserted city. A vague anxiety is floating in the air. You feel as if you are suffocating.
Balzac, still Balzac. I have read Birotteau and La Maison Nucingen, and begun Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, where the rediscovery of Vautrin heightens the curious interest.
Tuesday, 25 April
The bombing yesterday morning was the longest and probably the worst up to now. There was no trace of it in the center, at least, where everything — water, electricity, streetcars — seemed to be working normally. But they say the railway line was blown up at the Chitila marshaling yard, and that the Filantropa district was badly hit. Several young Jews from a civil defense detachment died in a trench shelter. Things also seem to have been very serious at Ploiesti.
I had lunch with Ginel Bălan,3 who told me of a “historic” conversation he had a year ago with Mircea Vulcănescu. The finance minister suggested to Bălan that he should assume the financial management of Transnistria, a kind of vice governorship. When Bâlan rejected the offer, Vulcănescu took him aside and tried to change his mind: “This is a unique opportunity for our imperial ambitions. Transnistria means the first experience of colonization in Romanian history. By planting forests in the whole of Transnistria, we’ll be able to stop the icy north wind ever blowing on us again.”
Sunday, 30 April